Diy led reef light

Himashi · Jan 21, 2019

hi, can you help me to find a circuit and control diagrams

Himashi · Jan 21, 2019

can you please help me to find compatible controller pcb diagram

boneone · Jan 21, 2019

MW LDD Drivers are easy, cheap, most common used & got PWM 2.5 ~ 6VDC
data sheet & diagrams are easy to find just google "MW LDD ..."

control diagrams depends on your controller
TC420/Tc421 cheap look @ tc420.net
reef pi & pca9685 makes more sense, you can control more than just light (modular build aquarium computer)
bluefish better than TC´s
....
there are a lot of controllers

do you allready know what Led´s, how many channels...
look allso @ multichannel MCPCB´s like blueacro or search aliexpress "channel cree"

garbled · Jan 21, 2019

I use the big 100W SMD chips on my tank, and have for a very long time. I love them, absolute dreams. However, I would not recommend building them (or anything for an aquarium) with computer heatsinks. The sinks are just not designed for a saltwater environment, and will fail, hard.

The SMD chips are super easy to wire up and build though, it's just that sufficient heatsinks for them are expensive, very expensive, and massive.

boneone · Jan 21, 2019

garbled said:
it's just that sufficient heatsinks for them are expensive, very expensive

copper would be expensive but alu is ok, fans & fan-drivers...
ok depends on passiv or aktive, how many, the size & power ^^

https://de.aliexpress.com/item/Radi...lgo_pvid=a1c8fbcd-193b-402e-aa58-2f0108802327

https://de.aliexpress.com/item/Flyi...0000&scm_id=1007.13338.112237.000000000000000

https://de.aliexpress.com/item/2016...69-458c-9668-07c5695fb8d7&transAbTest=ae803_4

garbled · Jan 21, 2019

I'm not a big fan of using computer fans near a reef tank. They tend to get eaten alive by the salt. So my build used massive vertical radial sinks, completely passive.

https://www.led-heatsink.com/advanced-high-bay-led-cooler-with-cooltube-coolbay--reg= giga--a

boneone · Jan 21, 2019

garbled said:
I use the big 100W SMD chips

what kind of SMD´s? 100w one SMD chip without color channels???
i would prefer a custom multichannel like my actual plans...
https://de.aliexpress.com/item/Ange..._expid=b828d21e-6060-4248-b82b-124a5e48b541-1

something like (still planing)
cree & semileds
RB-RB-RB-RB-RB CH1
B-B-B-B-B CH2
4500k-G-2700k-C-4500k CH3
395-420-395-420-395 CH4
RB-RB-RB-RB-RB CH1
add some Luxeon Mint CH5
maybe more (16 channels on pca9685 ^^)

garbled said:
I'm not a big fan of using computer fans near a reef tank. They tend to get eaten alive by the salt. So my build used massive vertical radial sinks, completely passive.

i also would prefer passive cooling, but the heat sink would be big... ~240-360w planed 4 starting ^^
i don´t like to take multiple heat sinks, because of clean wirering... (might be an option to mount multiple to one alu plate, but the look...hmmm)
what does your heat sink cost?
EcoTech & AquaIllumination also uses fans & they are not so often replaced what kind of fan you can choose, my concern would be more the noise level (but on low rpm with heat switch or pwm over reef-pi & pca9685)
but even the most computer fans are mostly plastic... just the motors & replacing once a year(or more likely 5-10 years) is not a problem they are cheep or buy sealed ones...
you can make a chase out of alu & acrylic to protect led´s & fans maybe with reflector & diffuser...

garbled · Jan 21, 2019

Yeah, mine are the COB style chips, 100W led in a 1"x1" matrix. Its a very different style than the typical light bar, it's more like a single point cannon. My sink was about $100, but that's because it's for a single COB.

I know there are probably good fans that are functional, sealed ones and the like, I just mean, computer fans, those are not good. If you can get a more industrial, higher end fan, that would probably be fine?

theatrus · Jan 21, 2019

garbled said:
Yeah, mine are the COB style chips, 100W led in a 1"x1" matrix. Its a very different style than the typical light bar, it's more like a single point cannon. My sink was about $100, but that's because it's for a single COB.

I know there are probably good fans that are functional, sealed ones and the like, I just mean, computer fans, those are not good. If you can get a more industrial, higher end fan, that would probably be fine?

Also depends on the fan quality, and the direction you're moving air and from where. The trick is to get the least moist, coolest air over the fan

But as a whole, fans suck. If you can passively cool, by all means do so.

bblumberg · Jan 23, 2019

I like Noctua IP67 rated fans. They are reasonably quiet, last a long time (>2 years so far) and cost only about $25 on Amazon for 120 mm. These replaced two IP-55 fans that ran constantly for more than 10 years with only occasional cleaning to get grime off the blades.

Jagg · Feb 2, 2020

bblumberg said:
This is a very subjective and personal issue. If you have a fair amount of royal blue and neutral to cool white, the lights will grow corals. Other colors UV/violet (400-420nm), hyperviolet (430 nm), blue (475-485 nm), cyan (496-505 nm), lime (570 nm) help to bring out specific colors and increase growth of some corals. Some people (and vendors) argue for high K white (15000-20000K) but I think that these days, many are coming back to a mixture of cool white (6500K) and neutral white (~5000K).

I built my first LED from a RapidLED kit that had 12 royal blue and 12 cool white to go on a 24g Nanocube with failed lights. This worked well enough, but the corals did not pop and I found that the blue channel needed to be run 3x higher than the whites to please my eye. This used dimmable drivers controlled by a manual dimmer switch. Not ideal, but functional.

My 2nd build over a 30" deep 75g corner tank the following mix (4 x 400 nm semi-LED, 4 x 410-420 nm semi LED, 4 x 420-430 NM semi LED, 9 x Luxeon ES 440-465 nm royal blue, 18 Cree XT-E 450-465 nm royal blue, 9 Cree XP-G2 6000k neutral white, 2 Cree XP-E Photo red (650-670 nm) and 2 Cree XP-E green (520-535 nm) all put on a 20" heat sink from RapidLED with a 4 channel Storm controller. This worked, but grew some more algae than I liked. Since then I have switched out the reds for XP-E blues, the greens for lime and half of the cool whites with neutral white. I like this better. This tank is in a rebuild/rescape phase but corals and anemones are doing well. These use 60 degree optics and some "disco ball" effects can be seen on the sand bed and rocks, but not so bad.

My 3rd build for a 150g (60 x 24 x 24) planned to use the "Dream Chip" that was written about a lot on another forum in a long thread. I won't bore you with all of the headaches I encountered, in part due to my own designs and partly due to defective chips. I decided to replace these with BlueAcro Acrostar 20K Blue Pro pucks with reflectors and diffusers on a 48" Makers heat sink, and flanked this by 2 x 80W T5 retrofits on either side. I like this quite a bit and it was very easy to install, wire, etc. It is a bit too blue/purple for my taste when only the LEDs are on and the light is not spread out enough, but the light mixing is quite good and there is no disco effect. I bought 3 more of these chips and 4 x LumiLeds neutral white COB LEDs that I will install one of these days. The T5s draw at least double the current of the LEDs as they are currently set.

You should consider whether you want one large heat sink or several small ones that might be more available and less costly. The Makers heat sinks are very nice, but so are the ones that RapidLED sells (and no doubt others). Fans are built in. Whether you use small 10 or 20w clusters is a matter of choice. You can buy these fairly cheaply on the internet from Chinese vendors. Overall, your most cost-effective option is probably to buy a couple of 165w "black box" LED units but this will not give you the quality or satisfaction of selecting chips yourself and assembling.

Hi you seem to have a decent grasp of lighting tech. I am seeking a bit of advice if you don’t mind. I’m new here and last kept marines 18 years ago. Looking to build 1800 gallon tank. Up and over a doorway. Will have two tall columns 1000 x 800 footprint x 2700. The bridge over the doorway will be the same footprint but the depth only 600. All my house lighting is low voltage LED working off 1 or 2 amp channels. However planning to light the tank in a conventional manner with LED colour controller app off my phone, using LED strips as the light source.

Would welcome any advice on lighting requirements to ensure depth coverage and good rendition to optimise coral growth. Will be a mixed set up with LPS and SPS and of course fish.

I’m not worried about fans and such like as I will be extracting the heat from over the tank with a centralised MVHR system. In fact for my house I only need 10 KW of heat and the aquarium and sump will be my primarily and only space heat source. the main tank will provide my space heating requirements and the sump will serve to heat my hot water using a air source heat pump unvented cylinder. Any advice would be most welcome. Thanks

bblumberg · Feb 3, 2020

Are your numbers in mm or cm? I am thinking mm but want to be sure. You are going to have trouble lighting the bottom of the 2700 deep tanks with anything other than an LED cannon and then you will be roasting the top of the same tank. 600 mm depth will be no problem but I don't have a good sense of what sort of LED strips will give you good light even at that depth. Blue Acro sells some strips, as do other vendors, but 600 mm will require standard type LED lights for good penetration.

Jagg · Feb 3, 2020

Hi thanks for responding. mm. Another option I have it to strip light down the outside of the tank to the corners or at the bottom outside faces of the tank as those areas will be hidden under drywall stud. I don’t know if that gives me more options?